Thursday, July 27, 2017

Tau vs Imperial Knights + Assassins


Quick Battle report of my Tau vs Mikes Imperial Knights


So battle was 1750, Big guns never tire, Vanguard Strike which we rolled for.
I placed first objective and deployed first, but Mkes force had 5 units so he won first turn choice despite my carefully building hoping to have an alpha strike list.  As fate would have it, I siezed!

Quick guess at army lists:
Tau:

Supreme Command Detachment
Commander 2x cyclic 2x MP
Commander 4x fusion

Commander 4x fusion
Commander 4x fusion

Vanguard Detachment
Aun-Shi (the invincible ethereal of DOOM!)

Ethereal with Honorblade

5 man breacher squad

Devilfish with drones

Stealth Battle suits
1x shasUi Burst Cannon

1x ShasUI Fusion + MT
1 ShasVre, Burst Cannon Markerlight and target lock

Stealth Battle suits
1x shasUi Burst Cannon

1x ShasUI Fusion + MT
1 ShasVre, Burst Cannon Markerlight and target lock

Crisis Battle Suits
5x Shasui 3x flamer each
6 shield drones

Crisis Battle Suits
5x ShasUi 3x flamer each
6 Shield Drones

Mikes Force:
3 Imperial Knights (not sure on load outs, hopefully he'll comment)

1 Calidus Assassin
1 Vindicar Assassin



Our Deployments, I put 2 steathteams down first to get close to his deployment zone before he filled it up and I had to be 12" away, then deploy the DFish, 2 ethereals and the breachers near an objective.

Turn one, I bring in all but my commander, the flamer teams drop in on the stealth teams homing beacons.  I totally overkill the vindicare with 9 flamers shooting at him, and split the other 6 off on the nearby Knight.  Mikes list makes me suspect the flamer teams are going to be of limited value in this game as 15 flamers generate around 50 hits for me typically, but wounding on 6's they won't be doing much work against knights.  I get first blood on the vindicare, and my 3 quad fusion commanders nearly kill the closest knight.  Across the way the other flamer team struggles to deal out any damage scoring a couple unsaved wounds.

His Warlord moves out to deal with my commanders, while the critically wounded knight tries to deal with the flame squad nearby.  I dump a bunch of wounds off on the drones, lose 2 out of 3 commanders (should have brought some drones for them to share, and his wounded knight ultimately dies to overwatch as it tries to charge the flamer team.  In the back more drones die for the greater good as I dump wounds to the 6 shield drones.  His callidus assassin roled bad for deployment ending up 9" away and failed her charge.

The aftermath of bottom of turn 1.  One knight has fallen a moral victory for the Tau, but at the cost of two commanders.

Turn 2 my warlord comes in but his loadout is subpar and I forget I'd spec'd him with a couple drones.  He does no wounds to Mikes Warlord then dies horribly.  I move up with both flamer teams trying to put wounds on his warlord, but the far one has too split 2 suits off on the far knight as their flamers are out of range.  They put a few wounds on the warlord.

Turn 3 and 4 are kind of a blur.. I manage to put down his warlord and lose my remaining commander along the way.  My Devil fish advances hoping to get the Breachers and Aun-Shi up into range but it moves to cautiously and they don't get there.  He takes out the far flamer team and the stealth team as well.


Update: I skanked this image from kill mame burns post showing
Aun-Shi harassing the Knight turn 5, photo cridit to Jeff W.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1114057218738286&id=654447594699253

Turn 5 Aun-Shi disembarks the Devilfish and moves towards the remaining knight while my suits fall back and try to claim objectives.  The Devilfish advances to get back on the 3rd objective.  Aun-shi gets into combat with the knight and inflicts one unsaved wound!  He makes 5 4+ invuln saves after rerolls and takes no wounds in return.  Huzah!  The cowardly knight flees from Aun-Shi's terrifying presence and tries to shoot my suits off the objective.  I cross my fingers and hope for the game to end as I might clinch a victory at this point.  It does not :(

The game goes on to turn 7, Aun-Shi engages the Knight in Assault again turn 6 but fails to wound, he takes 3 wounds in return.  The knight disengauges and eventually manages to shoot the remaining suits and Aun-shi off the board.  In the end we each have one objective, we've both scored slay the warlord, and neither has linebreaker.. However, as Knights are no Heavy support, I score no points for the 2 a slew, and he edges me out in kill points having killed 9 of my 12 units, while I only killed 4 of his 5..

PS hopefully the link to Kill Mame Burns post will work down here as it didn't in the photo comment:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1114057218738286&id=654447594699253